


The Lemon Parade

by ardvari



Series: the lives and times [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 16:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardvari/pseuds/ardvari
Summary: She cleans the house after that and throws all the windows open. Then she showers and makes herself a sandwich, and then she spends an hour on the phone with her brother. She just wants to know how he’s dealing with dad’s death, how the kids are, she wants a tiny bit of normalcy because her father’s body is with the Tok’ra and there won’t even be a funeral for him on earth.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after _Threads_ ; Jack takes Sam to the cabin.

**The Lemon Parade**

She goes home eventually, wondering how she made it through these past few days. The house is empty and quiet, and she doesn’t even have a shower before she grabs a box and packs up all of Pete’s things. There’s not much, thank goodness, and she’s happy when it’s all hidden away by the front door. 

She cleans the house after that and throws all the windows open. Then she showers and makes herself a sandwich, and then she spends an hour on the phone with her brother. She just wants to know how he’s dealing with dad’s death, how the kids are, she wants a tiny bit of normalcy because her father’s body is with the Tok’ra and there won’t even be a funeral for him on earth. 

She feels untethered and lost, adrift in her own life that feels both right and very, very wrong. By the time the sun dips behind the trees outside she has decided to just put all her energy into work, just the way she’s always done. She’ll work through the heartache, the loss, she’ll work until her brain buzzes with ideas and her heart is quiet. That’s always helped. 

The phone rings later that night when she’s already on the way to bed. She’s just in the process of turning all the lights off and the ringer startles her.

"Carter," she says, clearing her throat because her voice sounds so tiny and lost. 

"Hey, Carter!" he says back, sounding cheerful. "We’re all going fishing. At my cabin. I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow morning."

She can pretty much hear the anticipation in his voice when she sighs, closes her eyes. She presses her palm against the doorframe of her bedroom, takes some comfort in the smooth, cool wood. 

"Sir, I... I can’t. This is a bad time..." she trails off, almost angry with him because he should know that she’s not up for this.

She doesn’t even know where her head is, never mind her heart. 

"Carter, this is non-negotiable," he says, and he sounds resigned.

He’s not ordering her to go but she knows he’s not above doing that if he has to. She straightens her shoulders and bites her lip. She can hear him taking a sip of something, probably beer.

"Fine," she finally says. 

"Great. Seven. See you at seven," he says, stumbling over the words a little. 

She hangs up, tosses her phone on her nightstand and sighs again. Instead of going to bed, she packs a bag. She doesn’t even know for how long they’re going, how they’re getting up there. When she finally climbs into bed she wonders if he’ll bring Kerri along, too. It wouldn’t really surprise her, her life’s so strange and utterly fucked up that the presence of his secret girlfriend would be the maraschino cherry on top of everything else. 

The fact that she can actually sleep surprises her, but she does and when her alarm goes off at six she’s definitely not ready to face the world. She’s not ready to face him. She takes a shower, pulls on jeans and a sweater, puts on coffee. It’s quarter to seven when she downs the first cup and grimaces because it’s a little too hot and a little too strong. She drinks another half cup and then she can hear the roar of his truck outside. 

She opens the door on her way to the bedroom to grab her bag and he’s on her doormat when she comes back. 

"Hi," he beams.

She smiles tiredly at him, grabs a jacket off the hook and hands him her bag. It’s raining outside and the air is cool. She follows him to the truck, climbs into the passenger seat and sighs happily at the warmth. 

"Daniel and Teal’c?" she asks once he’s stuffed her bag into the back seat and has settled himself into the driver’s seat.

He pulls out onto the road before he answers, throwing her one of his small, guarded looks.

"They’re flying," he says and she doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what to say to him at all so she nods curtly and keeps her mouth shut. 

He turns up the radio, his windshield wipers pushing the rain aside outside. They listen to the news and she feels awkward and weird, doesn’t know what to say. Not after she showed up at his house to tell him why exactly she was having second thoughts about the wedding. Not after Kerri, not after their little moment in the observation room just before her father passed away.

The silence stretches between them and there’s a moment, when he crosses the state line into Nebraska, when she’s almost ready to plead with him to take her back. Instead, he stops to get gas, buys her coffee and a pack of fuzzy peaches. He smiles at her when he gets back into the truck and she sips her coffee quietly. 

"Kerri... we’re not... we broke up," he finally says. 

"Oh," she answers, and tries to focus on the road sign in front of them.

It whizzes past in the gloomy, rainy light. They’re driving past North Platte and she’s fairly sure that he’s not planning on stopping anywhere, that they will drive up to the cabin in one go. She doesn’t bother asking though, doesn’t quite feel up to making sentences yet. Her brain is still struggling with the fact that there’s no Kerri, and there’s no Pete, and maybe her life is in the process of getting better instead of worse. 

It takes him another few miles until he clears his throat again, glances at her, and asks, "Carter, what did you want to tell me when you came to my house?"

She swallows hard, turns away from him and looks out of the window. Drops of rain turn into rivulets, glinting silver as they race across the glass. As a kid she loved sitting in the back seat, loved watching strands of rain run across the glass. She would trace them with her finger until her father told her to stop, told her that she was leaving behind fingerprints and smears. 

"You should know," she says, and her voice sounds small again. 

She looks over to him and can see his hands tensing on the steering wheel. He doesn’t say anything for a while, just lets them both stew in this uncomfortable air. She rips open the bag of fuzzy peaches and sticks one in her mouth, sucking the sugar off of it. 

"I need you to say it," he finally says. 

There she is, on the spot again. She rubs the back of her hand across her eyes. It took her months to work up the nerve to come and talk to him. She’d had to give herself a pep talk in her car, sitting in his driveway and half hoping that he would see her and ask her why she was sitting there staring at his house. 

In the end she’d almost been glad that Kerri had interrupted her, and she definitely hadn’t expected him to ask what exactly she’d wanted to say. This is dangerous territory. This is what they’d tried to leave in the room all those years ago. 

"Alright," she finally says, drawing out the word defensively, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I was having second thoughts about the wedding because... I think I would have settled for less than I could have."

It’s vague, too vague, but she hopes it’ll be enough. He’ll understand. They’ve gone pro when it comes to beating around the bush.

"You seemed happy," he says and it almost sounds petulent. 

"I was. As happy as you can be when you decide to give up something... unattainable... and settle for something... less."

"But you didn’t give... it... up," he concludes for her.

This is growing to be increasingly painful for both of them. She’s not quite sure why he’s putting them both through this, why they can’t just go back to the way things were before. It’s worked for them before, these years of pining, of hurting, of loving and losing at the same time. 

"No, no I didn’t," she says and shakes her head. 

She pushes her hands, suddenly cold, beneath her thighs. Despite the warmth of the truck she’s shivering. 

"Neither did I," he confesses.

They’re quiet again after that and she finds a map, flips to the page that shows Nebraska and Iowa. She traces their progress with her finger, past Kearney and Grand Island, the stretch of straight highway separating them from Lincoln. 

They’ve been in the truck for eight hours, with a couple of small breaks when they finally reach Lincoln. It’s still raining outside when he pulls into the parking lot of a small restaurant and shuts the truck off. 

Neither one of them gets out; they sit in silence listening to the engine click as it cools. The air around them grows moist and cool. 

"Sir?" she asks, turning in her seat so she can face him.

His features are soft in the twilight and his eyes don’t quite meet hers when he nods for her to continue.

"Why now?" she asks softly.

Her turn to put him in the hot seat. 

"Because someone told me that if the Air Force is the only thing keeping us apart we’re making a big mistake. Got me thinking," he says. 

"Kerri?" she asks, although she already knows the answer.

He nods again.

"The Air Force is a pretty big... thing... keeping us apart," she says quietly, tucking her hands between her thighs. 

He chuckles humorlessly at that and takes the key out of the ignition. 

"Come on, they have great take out," he says, walking ahead of her to the restaurant’s entrance. 

They order food and then wait for it to be brought to them. Jack doesn’t want to stay and eat there, doesn’t want to be around other people. They eat in the car, already back on the road towards Omaha and, after that, the Iowa state line. 

"Jack..." she finally says, stuffing her empty take out containers back into the paper bag.

"I told the president I was going to retire," he blurts out before she can say anything else.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see her jaw drop, can pretty much see the wheels in her head turning. 

"And? I mean... I don’t want you to do that just for me," she says.

He chuckles again.

"He won’t let me retire," he says.

"Oh."

Her face falls and she picks at a piece of lint on her jeans, swallows hard. 

"Hammond’s retiring though," he says. 

He’s great at dealing out morsels of information, something he hates when she or Daniel are doing it, telling them both to get to the point. Then again they’ll be stuck in this truck for another seven hours at least so it’s not like he doesn’t have all the time in the world.

"I know," she answers. 

She doesn’t ask what this has to do with him or the possibility of a them, lets him work things out in his head first. They’re well past Omaha when he speaks again, his voice slightly hoarse, the rain growing stronger outside.

"President wants me to take over Homeworld Security."

"In Washington?" she asks, immediately shaking her head at herself. 

Of course in Washington. He smirks at her and doesn’t answer. 

"So... that means...?" she gestures with her hands for him to keep talking. 

She’s tired and wound up and frustrated. She wants to know what he wants, she wants to know if he has a plan, she wants to lean her head against the window and concentrate on the cold seeping into her skin.

"That means I’m no longer your CO. Effective immediately."

She gapes at him, at what that means, unsure of whether or not she’s required to say anything now because he seems to have a plan and while she seems to be a part of it, she also feels oddly left out. 

"Look Sam, these... feelings, they’re obviously not going away. I don’t want this to be weird or awkward even though... I guess it already is. It is what it is. I’m leaving the SGC. I’m no longer your CO. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d always be there for you," he says and then abruptly stops himself.

She’s staring at him again, her mouth parted. He wishes he wasn’t driving, wishes he could reach over and kiss that look off her face. He hopes that she will eventually let him kiss her, that she doesn’t think this whole thing too strange, that her feelings are as strong as his.

"Uhm," she says because she feels like she should say something. 

"I know this might have been bad timing with everything else you’ve got going on, your life is completely upside down and I do understand if you need some time to..."

"I think eight years is a pretty long time, don’t you think?" she interrupts and smirks at him. 

"Yeah... yeah I guess. Still Sam, I don’t... I don’t want you to feel like you’re not getting a choice in this."

"I cancelled my wedding, Jack," she reminds him dryly. 

He nods at that, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in his own, private rhythm. She unbuckles her seat belt and slides into the middle of the bench seat, pulls the seat belt across her waist again. Their shoulders are brushing and she grins at him. This couldn’t get more awkward if they actively tried and she decides to make the most of it, to stop regretting things, to move ahead, to see where this road will take them. 

Jack finally lifts his arm, drapes it along the backrest behind her and she settles, still a little tense, against his side. By the time they drive through Des Moines and he needs both hands on the wheel again they’re both more relaxed. She stays in the middle seat and dozes off for a while, her head on his shoulder. She’s not really asleep but her mind is wandering and she lets it. Outside it’s almost dark now, the headlights punching bright holes into the twilight. 

"Four hours," he says quietly and she lifts her head. 

"Hm," she says back.

He ruffles his hair then, wipes a hand across his face.

"I should probably tell you that Daniel and T aren’t coming until next Friday," he blurts out, grimacing slightly because he doesn’t know how she’ll react. 

He can feel her tense up before she lifts her head to stare at him. She blinks a few times, then puts her head back down. 

"We’ll probably need the time," she says matter-of-factly.

He almost drives off the road staring down at the crown of her head. He can feel her smirking against his shoulder and then he has to smirk, too. 

"Probably," he quips.


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes Carter’s bag and hands her the keys, motioning for her to go ahead. He follows her, rocks back on his heels as she pushes the key into the lock and opens the door. It creaks and then the smell of years of wood smoke lingering in the beams surrounds them. She takes a deep breath, turns around, and smiles.

**The Lemon Parade Part 2**

It’s very late, or very early, by the time they get to the cabin. The rain has stopped but the clouds are thick and heavy and it’s almost pitch black outside. Jack leaves the headlights on so they can carry their stuff inside and won’t step into any puddles or slip in the mud. He takes Carter’s bag and hands her the keys, motioning for her to go ahead. He follows her, rocks back on his heels as she pushes the key into the lock and opens the door. It creaks and then the smell of years of wood smoke lingering in the beams surrounds them. She takes a deep breath, turns around, and smiles. 

"I like it already," she says.

He drops their bags inside the door and while she flips on the lights in the living room and kitchen, he goes to turn the lights off on his truck. He doesn’t bother to lock it up here, it’s not like there’s anyone around. Before he goes back inside, he takes a deep breath. Five days with Carter. Just Carter. Sam. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He swallows hard and walks inside, kicking off his shoes before he goes looking for her.

She’s in the living room, always the soldier, already lighting a fire. When she’s done she wipes her hands on her jeans, gets up and turns around. She smiles when she sees him, the fire behind her making her look ethereal, painting her in hues of orange and gold. 

"Hungry?" he asks and she nods. 

He sends her to root through one of his bags full of canned food while he has a chat with his generator. The thing is old but it still works, it just has to be reminded of what to do every once in a while. He’s fairly sure Carter will take a look at it sometime over the next two weeks. Carter is magnetically drawn to things that are old or don’t work, and Carter can fix anything. 

After he’s cooked her dinner they both stand around the kitchen, looking for something to do. Dishes are done, the leftover tomato soup in the fridge. It’s past midnight and the clouds seem to break up above the cabin. 

"Uhm, I’ll show you... the spare room," he says, slightly deflated all of a sudden. 

She follows him out of the kitchen, leans against the spare room’s doorframe while he turns on the light on the nightstand, demonstrates how to close the curtains, and pulls back the bed’s cover. With her arms crossed over her chest she smirks at him.

"You brought me all the way up here so I could sleep in your spare room?" she asks softly.

He blinks at her a couple of times, then rubs his head and smirks.

"I was hoping you’d bring that up," he says sheepishly. 

He opens the curtains again, folds the cover back over the pillows, and turns off the light. Together they trudge through the living room to the master bedroom. There’s another moment of awkwardness when they both head for the bathroom at the same time, but he waves her ahead and watches her blush when she passes him. 

They’ve slept in the same tent a million times, they’ve huddled together to stay warm. They’ve never slept in the same bed and when they’re finally under the covers, he clears his throat and turns the light off. He listens to her breathing, the way it doesn’t slow or even out. She’s not sleeping and neither is he, his heart thumping away loudly in his chest. 

She’s all the way over on her side of the bed and he’s all the way over on his side and between them the covers and sheets dip down into the no-mans-land they’re still terrified to cross. 

They’ve spent years falling asleep against the sides of moist tent walls, more awake than asleep while they listened to the night life on another planet, waiting to be shot at. He knows she’s the lightest sleeper out of all of them, not counting Teal’c, and that she generally doesn’t need much sleep, unwilling to let her mind shut down.

"Good night," she whispers into the quiet room and he smirks, turns to face her.

"Good night," he whispers back, and reaches out to her, leaves his hand palm up in the space between them.

Her eyes have adjusted to the dark enough that she can see the outline of him, the bright spark of his eyes. He blinks at her and she turns over, faces him, and places her hand in his. He’s not going to kiss her, doesn’t want to because he’s fairly sure that eight years of unresolved sexual tension would render them unable to stop. There is a fairly good chance, he thinks, that they would screw up this attempt at a relationship right from the start. If their car trip up here had been any indication, they are treading on thin ice and while he doesn’t doubt his feelings or her feelings, he knows that the devil is in the details. 

They do fall asleep eventually and when he wakes up halfway through the night, they have both slid into the center of the bed somehow. Sam is close enough that he can feel her breath on his shoulder, brushing warmly through the fabric of his near-threadbare t-shirt. 

When he wakes up in the morning, the other side of the bed is empty. The sheets are rumpled and cool, and the door to the bathroom is open. The cabin is quiet and he wonders if she’s had second thoughts, if she took off sometime last night and he will find a note in the kitchen saying that she just can’t do this right now. 

On the way to the kitchen he’s already beating himself up, telling himself that all of this was a bad idea, that she has every reason to be gone, really. But there is no note, there’s a pot of fresh coffee and a mug, and the sliding glass doors that lead from the living room to the back porch and the pond is wide open. 

He goes and puts on a sweater before he goes outside, walking barefoot across the dewy wooden boards of the deck, down into the grass. He can see her footprints, and then her. She’s sitting on the edge of the dock, wrapped in one of his fleece jackets and sipping her coffee absentmindedly. He’s fairly sure she hasn’t heard him yet so he shuffles his feet a little more until he can see her tense and listen, the good soldier, and then turn her head. She smiles at him but doesn’t bother to get up. 

He sits down beside her, grimacing because his knees crack and there’s that dull, pulling pain behind his knee cap that spreads and then recedes. 

"Hi," she says, her eyes traveling up his boxer-clad legs to his sweater and his hair sticking up in every direction.

She’s amused, he can tell.

"Morning," he says a little too gruffly, running a hand through his hair almost self-consciously before he takes the mug out of her hand and takes a sip of her coffee. 

She turns back towards the pond, stretches her feet so her toes touch the pond’s surface. She traces lazy circles and figure eights that make the water ripple gently, and he watches her for a while, finishing her coffee and finally setting the mug down beside him. The dew is seeping in through his boxers, is no doubt seeping through the fleece that reaches down to her thighs and the shorts she’s wearing underneath.

The air is still cool from the rain, too cool for shorts, but she doesn’t seem to mind. 

"I get why you love it so much up here," she says quietly. 

He’s not going to remind her of how often exactly he’s asked her to come up here with him. He’s not going to remind her of how many times she refused, that she’d tried to refuse again. There has never been a doubt in his mind of whether or not she would love it; it had just been a matter of getting her to come with him in the first place.

"Worth it?" he asks softly, staring down at her hand curling around the edge of the dock.

She pushes her shoulders back and takes a deep breath.

"You know it is," she answers and smiles, and he isn’t sure anymore if they’re still talking about the cabin.

They’ve always been good at talking, but not really, about two things at the same time. 

He puts his hand on top of hers and she stretches her fingers so his fall into the spaces between. Her smile brightens and her eyes come to rest on his. He’s always loved her eyes, their blue depths holding more mysteries to him than the event horizon of the Stargate ever could. He can see her eyes flickering to his lips, then back to his eyes. There’s tension in the air now, electricity. They’ve kissed before. They’ve kissed because they were infected by an alien virus, he’s kissed her in an alternate reality, and he’s kissed her while they were stuck in a time loop. 

He carefully pulls her closer and it’s awkward because they’re both sitting on the dock and they have to twist a little, but then her hands are on his cheeks and she pulls his mouth down to hers, and nothing else matters. This kiss isn’t like any of the other kisses because this is genuinely them and there’s no alien virus, no alternate reality, nothing but them, pure and simple. 

Her lips are soft and when he traces her bottom lip with his tongue she opens her mouth and he can taste coffee and sweet relief on her breath. Her hands fall from his cheeks to his neck and somehow she manages to turn herself around until she’s kneeling beside him. He pulls her into his lap and the entire thing is a little precarious but they make it work. They kiss until her hands start pulling on his clothes and his fingers sneak beneath her shirt and stretch along her back. 

He rests his forehead against hers and she giggles because they should both be too old for this and yet here they are, dressed inappropriately for the weather on a dock in Minnesota kissing like teenagers. 

"What?" he asks, his hand above her shirt now but beneath the fleece jacket, warm against her side. 

"Nothing. Just... this. It’s really nice," she says. 

He chuckles at that, pulls her body against his and wraps his arms around her. He kisses the side of her neck, letting his lips linger against her pulse.

"Breakfast?"

"Yes, please," she says, kissing him again before she climbs off of him, holding out her hand to pull him up. 

She doesn’t let go of his hand on the way to the cabin and he’s quite happy with that. It’s still cool outside but he feels warm now because Sam’s beside him and occasionally their entwined hands brush against his thigh.

"Omelets?" he asks when they’re in the kitchen and he realizes that he’s brought beer and eggs and canned food with him and nothing else because he usually runs to the store first thing in the morning.

"With the secret ingredient?" she asks and he smirks.

"Can do," he says, and she giggles again.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things, she realizes, that she doesn’t know about him. She knows how he sleeps, what he likes to eat, she knows that he would move to Minnesota in an instant. She knows him inside out when they’re in the field or on the base because eight years of working together, fighting together, trying not to die, has joined them at the brainstem.

**The Lemon Parade Part 3**

There are some things, she realizes, that she doesn’t know about him. She knows how he sleeps, what he likes to eat, she knows that he would move to Minnesota in an instant. She knows him inside out when they’re in the field or on the base because eight years of working together, fighting together, trying not to die, has joined them at the brainstem. 

Out here, Jack is different. He’s more relaxed, he’s not as sarcastic and defensive as he usually is. She catches him watching her a lot, the expression on his face open and warm and full of questions. 

Earlier when they’d finally driven to the small grocery store, he had pushed the cart through the aisles while she filled it with all the things they might need at the cabin. More eggs and milk, meat, vegetables and fruit, cheese and crackers, and juice. He’d wrinkled his nose when she’d dropped the veggies into the cart but had kept his mouth shut. Smart man.

Being up here with him and doing things normal people, normal _couples_ do unsettles her slightly because they’re not normal and they’ll never really be. It’s unsettling but it makes her giddy, too, and when he sets up a lawn chair for her on the dock and then kisses her before she sits down, she can feel her skin catching on fire. 

He hands her a fishing pole and then explains to her how to use it. It’s easy, self-explanatory for somebody who’s blown up a sun before but he’s really into explaining this to her and so she nods and smiles and pretends that this fishing pole is the most complex thing she’s ever encountered. He eventually stops talking and looks at her, at the smile on her face, and he sighs.

“You know how this works?” he asks, gesturing towards the fishing pole in her hands.

“It’s not exactly rocket science,” she answers, biting her lip.

He smirks and picks up his own fishing pole. 

They’re quiet while they fish, or hold on to their poles, because there are no fish in this pond. She finds it more relaxing than she thought she would, usually finds dismantling something, building something much more relaxing than simply sitting around. Maybe it’s his presence beside her, the way he keeps sneaking glances at her. She knows he wants her to say it, wants her to tell him again that this is nice, that she wishes they hadn’t wasted all those years, but she’s not there yet. 

It’s not like saving the galaxy was a waste of time. Somewhere along the way she’d given up on her personal life but she doesn’t really regret anything, not when she thinks back at all those things she’s gotten to do. Without the Stargate she’d probably still be at the Pentagon. Maybe she would’ve ended up at NASA, and she never would have met Jack or Daniel or Teal’c, and her father would have died years ago. 

She sighs, and it’s not a happy sigh but Jack doesn’t ask where her mind has gone to, he can see it on her face. He reaches out, puts his hand on the back of her neck and rubs his thumb along her skin. He leaves his hand there even though it must be uncomfortable after a while, and she turns her head and smiles. 

“Thanks,” she says, and he nods. 

They have lunch out on the deck and then go back to fishing, sipping beers until the sun disappears behind the trees and the air grows just chilly enough for her to shiver involuntarily. She gets up and stretches, fishing pole raised high over her head. He watched her and when her eyes land on his, he smiles.

“What?” she asks, feeling out of her depth a little because his smile is crooked and unreadable.

“Nothing,” he answers. 

They fold up the lawn chairs and then carry everything back to the cabin. He fries up some steaks for them and she makes a salad, and here they are again, being all domestic together. She can’t quite wrap her brain around any of this, it all just feels strange and new and so deliciously right. 

She carries their plates into the living room and they eat in front of the fire place. She watches him watch a football game, the way he shakes his head and yells at the TV. It’s endearing, and she leaves him to the game when they’re done so she can do the dishes. She takes her time, staring out of the window, watching the air grow misty outside. A layer of fog is settling over the pond, wafting through the trees. It looks surreal and she half expects a dinosaur to walk across the back yard. 

She’s so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice him coming in, all of a sudden feels his breath on her ear before he kisses her cheek. That’s it, that’s just it and something in her snaps in half. She whips around, blue eyes afire, and grabs a fistful of his shirt with her wet, soapy hands. She pulls him closer until their lips meet and she can press her body against his. He’s right there with her, wraps his arms around her and pushes her back against the counter. They’re kissing each other breathless, hands everywhere, his thigh between hers making her moan eventually, and then her shirt comes off and so does his. 

There’s no way in hell they’re going to stop now, not when her hands are running down his chest, when the freedom of being allowed to touch is making her head spin, when he cups her breasts and his lips find their way to her collarbone. 

She pushes against him after a while, breathless, her cheeks flushed and her hair tousled. 

“Bed?” she asks, hopefully, and he nods, rests his forehead against hers for a moment before he takes her hand and leads her into the bedroom they’re sharing. 

He doesn’t ask her if she’s really sure about this, doesn’t have to when her lips find his again and she clings to him as he walks them both over to the bed. The backs of her knees hit the mattress and she smirks up at him, arms wrapped around his neck when she pulls him down with her. 

They’ve waited eight years for this and there’s been so much hurt, so much longing, so much loss between then and now that they don’t stop, and they don’t take their time. Sam slides her lips along his skin, breathes in the scent of him, lets her fingers play along his skin, all this skin she wasn’t allowed to touch in the past. They get lost in the moment and then she cries out and he shudders above her and the sky turns dark outside. 

Somehow he manages to tuck the covers around them both later while she’s firmly wedged against his side, her head on his arm, her entire body curled into his. He kisses the top of her head and she nuzzles his shoulder, peeks up at him and smiles. 

“Hi,” she says and sounds sleepy and content.

“Hi,” he says back.

He brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and then moves until his nose is almost touching hers, until he can look into her eyes and they’re just a little blurry. 

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I will be,” she says because she knows he’s not concerned about the way she’s feeling right now and more worried about the way she’s doing in general. 

They move back into the living room eventually and settle in front of the fire. He finds a bottle of wine somewhere and they sip it slowly, curled up together, still half naked and wrapped up in a bunch of blankets. 

There’s still so much they should be talking about, so much they need to discuss. He’s still a little worried that this might have happened too soon, that under the pressure of their daily lives this relationship isn’t going to last, will not be enough to sustain her. At least the galaxy is safe for now, safer than it’s been for years, so maybe he won’t have to worry about her so much while she’s out there and he’s in Washington. 

She still has things to sort through back in Colorado, still has to make some phone calls to cancel the wedding, to do her share of the work. She doesn’t want to think about any of that now, about that edge of guilt she will feel for years to come. She’s happy right now and everything else can wait until she’s back. 

He presses his lips against her temple as if he knows what she’s thinking about, lets them linger against her skin until she giggles and turns around to face him. 

“Thanks for taking me up here,” she says softly and kisses him. 

“Any time,” he answers and smirks.


	4. IIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete calls a day before Daniel and Teal’c are supposed to fly in. She talks on the phone quietly, hissing things, writing things down. Jack leaves her alone, doesn’t hover while she’s in the kitchen dealing with things she wishes she didn’t have to deal with right then and there. Real life is intruding on their little bubble of peace and she’s not happy about it.

**The Lemon Parade Part 4**

Pete calls a day before Daniel and Teal’c are supposed to fly in. She talks on the phone quietly, hissing things, writing things down. Jack leaves her alone, doesn’t hover while she’s in the kitchen dealing with things she wishes she didn’t have to deal with right then and there. Real life is intruding on their little bubble of peace and she’s not happy about it. 

He walks out onto the deck, pushes his hands into his pockets and stares at his pond. The wind is pushing small waves against the grassy banks and the clouds above are fluffy and grey at the edges. Maybe they’ll get a thunderstorm tonight, one of those real Minnesota ones full of angry thunder and brighter-than-light lightning. The kind of lightning that slices through the atmosphere to leave its edges burned and smelling like liquid electricity. 

She comes and finds him on the deck after she’s done on the phone and then she’s edgy and broody for the rest of the day. She tries to hide it beneath a veneer of fake smiles but he can see right through her and so, finally, he just grabs her hand when she walks by, pulls her against him, and holds her until she cracks. 

It doesn’t take long because of everything that’s happened, and she cries quietly, fists bunched into his shirt. He doesn’t ask her what she wants, what’s wrong, doesn’t ask her what he can do to help. He knows that he can be there for her, that that’s the only thing he can do, the only thing she needs. 

She falls asleep on the couch that evening, her head on his chest, and while his back is protesting because of the angle he’s at, he doesn’t move until the thunderstorm rolls in. He wakes her up because he wants her to see it, and together they stand in front of the sliding glass doors, watching the lightning as it bruises the sky purple, listening to the thunder. She rests her shoulder against his and smirks up at him. 

He finds it surprising how much they can communicate without saying a single thing. 

In the morning she gets on top of him, moving in the dim, grey light filtering in through the dusty curtains. She laces her fingers through his, her eyes focused on his, entirely in this moment they’re stealing before the boys arrive. 

When they do, she slips into the shower and then greets them afterwards, hugging first Daniel and then Teal’c, and he watches in fascination because there isn’t a trace left of yesterday’s Sam. This is SG-1’s Sam, the team leader, the woman that will stand and fight, the one that will walk through fire for all of them. 

She goes out and plays with the generator while he cooks lunch, and when he goes out to tell her to come in, Daniel’s crouched down beside her, nodding at her while she talks. He calls to them both, and Daniel grins at him, touches his arm briefly as he walks by. 

“You told him?” Jack asks her, walking back towards the cabin with her.

She wipes her hands on her jeans and he notices for the first time that she’s wearing one of his shirts, near threadbare flannel unbuttoned over one of her tank tops.

“Was I not supposed to?” she asks back, humor in her voice. 

“No, I just… I didn’t think… I wasn’t sure if you would,” he says and cringes because now he feels vulnerable.

She smiles up at him, slows down a little so they have a couple more moments before they reach the cabin. 

“But I did. And I think Teal’c knows, too,” she says simply.

She doesn’t want to ask him why he thought she’d want to keep this, whatever this is, a bigger secret than they have to. She’s not about to declare her undying love for him or anything like that. 

“Teal’c always knows everything,” Jack grumbles and makes her giggle. 

They walk into the small kitchen together; fill a couple of plates and then sit down in the living room with the boys, side by side on the couch. He pushes a piece of tomato onto his fork and holds it out to her because this is what they’ve been doing all week and he decides that he doesn’t want to stop now. She smiles and eats it off his fork and Daniel rolls his eyes while Teal’c nods at them. 

He marvels at how normal all of this already feels; at how well they’re doing all of this. Washington and the Stargate are still a few days away and he wonders how he’s going to settle down at Homeworld Security without her. How he’s going to do with not being able to see her every day in some form. It’s going to get harder now, he knows that, but there’s really nothing they can do. It’s the way it’s going to be. 

They spend the days fishing and the nights whispering, touching, pushing through some of that anxiety about all of the impending changes, about the fact that there’ll be half a country between them when she’s on Earth and more than just one step through the event horizon when she’s not. It’s not like they can make any concrete plans, their lives are unraveling right now, and they need to just go with the flow, live one day at a time. 

When Daniel and Teal’c have long gone to bed on their last night at the cabin, Sam and Jack sneak out onto the dock. He grabs the thick quilt off the couch and she takes a couple of bottles of beer. The night is cool and moist and the stars above them are bright. She settles against him, sighs when he wraps his arms around her waist and buries his nose in her hair. 

“When are you leaving for Washington?” she asks softly.

“Three days,” he answers and his voice sounds a little off.

“You’re gonna do great things.”

“We’ve always done great things,” he reminds her and she giggles.

It’s true, so very true. They’ve done so many good things, saved the universe so many times. He wonders what the future holds in store for them, wonders but is also a little weary of everything, feeling like there might be another galactic disaster just around the corner. He already knows about the SGC’s budget being cut now that the Goa’uld are officially defeated. He already knows these things and keeps them to himself. She’ll go back to the mountain and she’ll get to make her own decisions about her future, about where she wants to be, what she wants to do. She’ll do great things, too, he’s sure of that. 

“What are we gonna do?” she asks, and he knows she’s talking about the two of them now, about whatever-this-is. 

He shrugs, tracing the pattern on the quilt with his finger, letting his hand slip underneath and then beneath her shirt to trace the edge of her sweatpants. He likes the feel of her warm skin, the way she shivers slightly at his touch. 

“I guess I’ll be at the SGC quite a bit to discuss… matters of affairs or something,” he quips, not answering her question directly.

She nods thoughtfully, her hand finding his beneath the quilt. She holds on to it, lets her fingers play along the back of his hand. 

“Maybe, if you wanted to, you could visit me in Washington,” he whispers hopefully. 

The wind picks up, whistling through the trees and she closes her eyes, leans her head back against his chest.

“You know I will,” she says.

And he does.


End file.
